Albert Einstein

A violin crafted for, and belonging to, Albert Einstein has achieved $516,500 at a Bonhams auction in New York. The first Einstein violin to ever be offered at auction set a new record for Einstein memorabilia.

The final round of scientific auctions for 2017 occurred last week and there were the usual puzzling results in a market slightly off the boil. There were some rare scientific documents and instruments to be had at reasonable prices that will return a handsome profit in the short to medium term.

A team of scientists has announced the fifth detection of gravitational waves, but there’s a groundbreaking difference this time: the ripples were caused by the collision of two neutron stars, meaning the event was accompanied by light, radio, and other electromagnetic signals for the first time.

The 2015 detection of gravitational waves is one of the most important scientific discoveries in a century. It’s no surprise then that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics to scientists at the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration, for that groundbreaking discovery.

Another day, another detection of gravitational waves. LIGO has just detected gravitational waves for the fourth time, but it wasn’t alone this time: the signals were also measured by the Virgo detector in Italy, marking a new milestone in the observation of the Universe.

​In 2015, LIGO detected gravitational waves for the first time, by observing tiny wobbles in laser beams, but a newly launched telescope in Spain is aiming to see them more directly, scouring the skies for the optical signals associated with gravitational waves.

Gravity from huge objects like stars can curve spacetime, bending light from its straight path. This can alter how we see distant stars through what's called gravitational lensing, and now astronomers have seen it in action, directly observing a star bend the light of another, more distant star.

After a week of daily stories, our journey into scientific discovery viewed through the prices fetched by manuscripts on the auction block is complete. The 10 most expensive scientific documents ever sold at auction follows.​

From the rare scribblings of Alan Turing through to the genius of Newton, Einstein and Émilie du Châtelet​, we continue to navigate our way through the fascinating list of the 50 most valuable scientific documents of all-time​.